Rap against Health Sec goes viral

The rapper, real name Sean Donnelly, has found himself a viral YouTube and Twitter celebrity after recording a track that certainly offers a "different sound". Eschewing the traditional hiphop themes of bling, booty and babes, Donnelly has recorded a caustic three-minute rap about the Department of Health's white paper "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS", and dedicated it personally – highly personally, one might say – to the health minister himself.

"Andrew Lansley, greedy! Andrew Lansley, tosser!" runs the refrain, repeated throughout the song, over a sample taken from The House of the Rising Sun. "The NHS is not for sale, you grey-haired manky codger!" But if Donnelly is far from polite in his political protest, he has certainly done his research.

People like this can vote?

I'll do my own fact checking later, but care to expand on that statement?

Firstly hes being an abusive dolt.

Secondly he goes on about selling the NHS which is a load of BS.

Thirdly. It really is a crap song.

The NHS couldn't go on as it was. Its deficits were huge, its overspends unjustifiable. If Labour and Unison (the latter funded this apparently) can come up with a better proposal and pipe down on its perennial, and now slightly boring, "ideological cuts" argument then we might actually get somewhere with our NHS which is the single biggest thing we should be proud of in this country.

Partial privatization is partially selling bits of the NHS...

One thing you never seem to get is that in cases like this, people don't care about the facts, what sounds bad is freaking them out and the NHS is the largest public institution that the people of this country has faith in, and now Lanlsey is screwing about with it. Of course people are going to get angry. Alot of experts are saying it's a crap idea as well.

The NHS is a massive institution in dire need of reform tbh.

The NHS is a massive institution in dire need of reform tbh.

Maybe, but not these re-forms which no-one wanted, no-one asked for and weren't in the Tory Manifesto (bit like AV).

But they are ideological. The UK is not in the worst position of the advanced economies, and people's fear of debt has given the Conservatives an opportunity to draw back the state. Historically, we have been in a much worse position in regard to debt for much of the 20th century, so there is no need to damage public services to get us out of it.

The NHS couldn't go on as it was. Its deficits were huge, its overspends unjustifiable. If Labour and Unison (the latter funded this apparently) can come up with a better proposal and pipe down on its perennial, and now slightly boring, "ideological cuts" argument then we might actually get somewhere with our NHS which is the single biggest thing we should be proud of in this country.

The NHS is a massive institution in dire need of reform tbh.

I suspect that your position has more to do with ignorance of what is being proposed - considering the Lansley proposals will not save any money. I disagree about the NHS overspending as well; British healthcare spending is very modest compared to comparative countries - being less per person than Australia, France and Germany, and the USA (whose system costs the state double what it costs the British state) http://www.badmouth.net/content/uploads/2009/08/per-capia-expenditure.gif. My only objection is the way grey-haired is used as an insult, other than that I think it's fantastic.

Its biggest dire need is for over-promoted politicians to stop playing politics with it.